North Huron Citizens Stripped Of Right To Secure/Defend Property At Town Staff's Discretion In Hometown Security Act (10-2016)
Source: WFP
Date: Sat Jan 23 19:32:59 MST 2016
A councillor asked for a legal review of this law, and complained he hadn't received any information yet.
So, now you are probably thinking this by-law is dead in the water, as a requested legal opinion was not provided. Well, this is Wingham. We are less than one minute into this debate/issue, and we are already on the second reading despite the absence of a requested legal opinion.
Remember, the Public was not notified about this “Hometown Security Act”, was not allowed to speak at the meeting, was not notified in any way, and absolutely no attempt was made to acquire Public comment or allow Press questioning.
This law allows town staff to enter you home if they believe your security is designed to slow or detect police getting into your home. It is ok if the system is to detect and slow down home invaders until police arrive though.
This means if in town staff's opinion your security system/cameras, barking dog, barred windows, steel door, gated lane, closed curtains, or fenced property is to the keep them out or from them looking in, they can enter your property to see what you are hiding. That's right, somehow town staff can tell by looking at your barred windows and/or security system and tell if your intent was to keep them out or home invaders. If they like you that day, they may decide you are keeping out home-invading-meth-head-rapists. If you have pissed them off, asked too many questions, they may just decide you are keeping out the police and therefore need “inspecting”.
This law was forced through to go after some of town staff's targets which the laws currently don't allow. That's right, some people have pissed them off so much they tailor a law to go after them. Now you might be saying that's all conspiracy theory BS. Besides, they wouldn't dream of doing a third reading and passing this the same night without legal opinion, public or press scrutiny...would they?
Below are quotes from current town staffer tim lewis regarding reasons to implement the Hometown Security Act.
“ok, and you know uhm, sometimes it takes a little bit of time ok, we have a few things going on here in this municipality right now where, you know! It's taking us time, right! Based on following procedure, following the law.”
“ok, they bar them up for a reason. Right?! They don't want you to see they've punched holes in walls, you know they are stealing hydro and they are doing this and that. Right?”
“So. Now I can go in and "inspect" it as I have right of entry ok, ok. This gives me right of entry before you get to that point.”
This passed first, second and third reading before the Public or Press was allowed comment. The Public was never informed, asked for input or allowed comment. Hearsay legal opinion and support was offered with zero proof. Staff clearly stated they wanted to go after Citizens and the law was currently preventing them from doing so, and this by-law was a tool for getting them.
Click here to file a complaint with the Ontario Ombudsman
Turn on CC to read transcript as you watch the video:
http://www.thewinghamfreepress.com/cgi-bin/pr.cgi?35953
Posted by Wingham Freepress on Saturday, January 23, 2016
Transcript of how the North Huron Hometown Security Act came into effect in 12 minutes beyond the scrutiny of the Public and Press.
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By-law number 10-2016 being a by-law to regulate the fortification of land and protective elements applied to land and to prohibit excessive fortification of land and excessive protective elements being applied to land within the township of north huron.
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and, a dat ah
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That's read first and second time.
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argaracount
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Do I have to move that motion first?
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I would like, I have a question.
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Ahhh, can I have a mover and seconder and then will.
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Ok, I so move
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Ok, I'll also move.
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And councillor vodden seconds.
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Go ahead.
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When we looked at this before, and deferred it I had asked if have some legal review of this, and ah Chief Sparling indicated that he thought Howick had done that, I have yet to see that, I haven't received it.
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At the conclusion of that I indicated that this would probably fall more under official building standards so that was deferred to Tim and he got the list of questions that council had, and I understand some councillors came in personally and saw him about those issues.
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but the questions council did have were addressed, including the lawyer.
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Good evening I can help you out there.
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Most of the time legal opinions are are something the municipality pays for OK, AH, they are not going to hand those out, I mean I don't think we hand out our, you know, what I could guess I could refer to as personal documents just ad hoc to people.
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And uhhm they're not going to do it either, so uhm, Kmmm, on the upside to that *unitelligible* was involved with uhm I guess
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particular with with this by-law when I was working in Minto, Ahhh, there was a number of municipalities, *unintelligible* was involved in the ahh review review and implementation of this by-law, and legal review of this by-law, OK.
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Ahhum, OPP were involved, ahh, all the building officials were involved, and ahh fire ahh ambulance even had some ahh input to this, so uhhmm it was looked at, torn apart uhm other municipalities ahh their by-laws were looked at ,some of them were
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very lengthy and thick and I find most of the time you just into, you know, causes, sometimes the bigger the legal document the more problems it causes OK
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This ahh this is pretty straightforward and ahh and simple, and uhmm if you read in it's entirety, ok, and uhm, then go back and take a look where the exemptions are and what the laws, by-law is referring to, I can probably there's not a person in this room that will ever have anything to do with this by-law.
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It uhm, it specifically, there's one paragraph in here that tells you that this particular by-law deals with somebody or a group of somebodies who is trying ok to prevent emergency services, whether it be police fire or ambulance
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from entering a premises undetected or about them having a chance to either to fend them off or to dispose of whatever illegal activities they are doing.
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so uhm and that's the long and short and that's what the whole document is about.
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so anybody who's doing anything *unintelligible* on their property ok, whether it is climbing to the top their silo and taking pictures or taking videos because that is what they like to do, or if they have a property that they feel is
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you know, on the outskirts of town and maybe it's not particularly well lit and maybe is a little vulnerable for some reason, is that going to stop them from barring the windows or doing something to protect their property, no? Ok?
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ok, it comes back to intent, most law comes back to that, right? You know, is there, is there criminal intent there, no there's not, ok?
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the intent of the by-law is to take a look at this municipality and protect the citizens, protect the ms guys from having to deal with a fortified premises
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.....and, you know, and unfortunately we can't, you know tell you everything we see on every property when we are out the every day for a number of reasons
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even, you know, in this municipality there's people who would, ok, do things like, you know, put on heavy steel doors on, you know, electrify those doors, do whatever to keep people out, ok.
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that is aimed this is aimed at ok, so uhm, hopefully that clears some of that up for you.
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uhmmm, I have discussed it with the police locally, and uhhh, other than that, any questions?
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Councillor Seip.
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I have a question about that, IF this is to deal with illegal activity potentially? I, I, I have a problem with the fact that if they are willing to break federal law and provincial law, why do they care what by-law the township of North Huron puts in? Like, why, why would that person care?
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you can't make people care ok, so.
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So what's the enforcement then?
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That problem is that's my problem.
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the enforcement is ok, when these buildings are left over, ok, it doesn't matter. and we're gonna be coming forward with other by-laws to deal with these types of things ok.
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when these buildings are left over that have been fortified ok, if you don't have any enforcement for people doing stuff like that, you know they've done it, ok, uhmm...you know, it's obvious ok, so when they go in, ahh we just had one a while ago.
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out in East Wawanosh in this area ok, there was stuff done there, ok, could we have charged them, yes, ok, so the provincial offences act is makes fines very substantial now ok i mean there's thousands of dollars right?
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so we lay a charge and get a conviction, and there's five or six people say for an example running a you know it's an illegal grow op or a meth lab or whatever right or and they are doing that type of thing and you charge them all, right and say you get a $6,000 fine on each one 75% of that comes back to the municipality
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to help pay for the cost of remediating that property cause this is going to be all ballpar we gotta fix that, right? we can't just turn around say well I'm not gonna do nothing with that property right, ok, you know, there is going to be things there that fall under property standards
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you have an obligation as a municipality to take care of, the money has to come from somewhere.
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follow up to that are is it in your ah is it in your perspective that you believe that we would get that money? Like anybody, ANYBODY can fine anybody, it's whether you can actually get the jingle to actually as fat.
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That would be true with any law, so what do you do, not have any laws and CHAOS? NO! You can't do that! Ok! And, I, I don't think that is what you intended.
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NO, That's not my intention.
But that's that's where it goes right? Ok? You just can't stand back and do nothing.
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ok, and you know uhm, sometimes it takes a little bit of time ok, we have a few things going on here in this municipality right now where, you know! It's taking us time, right! Based on following procedure, following the law. Will we get our money? Yeah, OK!
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Eventually, right, but ya gotta follow the process, right?
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but if you don't have a process in place, you got no where to go right? You just gonna stand there and have properties, could be in town here, could be out in the country, but it could be in town here.
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right, now you've got a property that's needs to be, you know, remediated because you know, ahhh let's take the case like in Hamilton where, you know,
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they're making chemicals or there's meth or whatever in the apartment they resell that place or they release it and nobody has gone it to remediate that place and the poor little kid you put in the bathtub has to soak all those chemicals in before someone realizes hey, you know what we should have done something.
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about that before it was turned back over to the general public, right? It's the same thing for any house that has been used for the type of reason. Right?
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you gotta, you gotta take care of it, you just can't put people at risk, and, and let it go. ok, they do all kinds of things to this properties. Right?
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ok, they bar them up for a reason. Right?! They don't want you to see they've punched holes in walls, you know they are stealing hydro and they are doing this and that. Right?
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Uhmmm, yeah I mean, you know you have to start somewhere, you know and you know, hopefully you know, you don't have to, you don't rely on this. Right? But, you know it'sa justa, it's justa tool and something else to, you know? To help deter people? That's all? OK!
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And you may "get off" before they get to the point. Right, ok ;-) Somebody comes along, without going in how people build cases, I mean, you're ssss, as a police office you're sitting on a place and you are watching traffic come and go, you know the people who own the place have been busted four or five times before for trafficking, say right.
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Now you got your traffic flow, you know that's going on, well next thing you see is bars going on the place, you think you going to have trouble convincing the judge they are fortifying the place? NO! OK, So, you know.
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Councillor Knott.
Through yourself Reeve, the, so I guess the main thrust of this by-law isn't so much prevention then, what it is is remediation in the event we event we find people who have done things this gives us a method of removing.
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Either that or doing it.
ok
So, not so much prevention, I kindda have the thrust of it now.
Ok
Yeah.
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I can't say any law prevents people from doing this, I'd keep very busy.
????
So, just let me ask a question. If this doesn't exist.
Doesn't Exist?
Does NOT Exist.
What, what do we do today, as it doesn't exist today. If we have an issue today?
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We have no power of entry till afterwards, ok. This gives us power of entry if we, if we catch it before it gets to the point where, you know the people are charged and busted and we gain entry through the, you know the OPP or someone coming along and saying hey,
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You know this place was just taken down, this is what was going on there, that gives me as building official the reason to suspect the place maybe unsafe? Ok.
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So. Now I can go in and "inspect" it as I have right of entry ok, ok. This gives me right of entry before you get to that point.
OK, Thank you.
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Any other questions?
Ok, thanks very much.
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assfur first and second reading.
All in favour!
Carried (unanimously)
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Ok, moving to third reading, and finally pass.
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Deputy Reeve Campbell.
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Councillor Vodden.
All in favor!
Carried.